Is love an innate,
unconscious impulse that has been encoded into our genes over millions of
years as a mechanism to ensure the survival of (the whole or individual members
of) the species? Or is there more to it? Is there another way to explain it?
Do all animals experience love?

“Is love an evolutionary instinct? I.e., is it an innate, unconscious impulse that has been encoded into our genes over millions of years as a mechanism to ensure the survival of (the whole or individual members of) the species? Or is there more to it? Is there another way to explain it? Do all animals experience love?”

Note: This summary is based and interpreted from notes taken during the debate and may contain errors. If you wish to correct, be attributed to or contribute content, please contact me or post a comment.

- Most of the group agreed that most (80-90%) or all of human behaviour is evolutionary instincts in action. Some people noted that it is difficult to discuss love as it is part of our internal programming and may be difficult to separate from the cultural influences.

- One member of the group argued that being conscious of your actions doesn’t make love (or any other emotion) an instinct. Being able to think before and reflect afterwards does make having emotions a rather interesting aspect of the human condition.

- While we have only been “intelligent” for a comparatively short time of our evolutionary history, long-term monogamous pair bonding might have only been a very recent cultural invention. (Extra content – You Tube Video on biological polygamy)

- It is not yet known if non-human animals experience similar emotional experience as us but the amount of time they are pregnant and how they nurture their young may tell us quite a lot about the evolution of love.

- Lacking affection and adequate welfare in one’s early years can drastically affect your current and future relationships and your physical and emotional wellbeing.

- Love beyond reproduction is a choice (at least for humans) and arguably one that was reserved to those who have the power, luxury and freedom to do so.

- Despite the wealth of love literature in our global culture, arranged marriages were the norm (and arguably still are in some cultures).

- Humans still haven’t developed a clear definition/notion of love as a concept, you can tell by the many different ways we define it in our cultures and language. Love for children, love for other humans (compassion and empathy) and spiritual love all fit under the banner of love.

- Tracing the linguistic changes of the word “love” can show you a lot about how a culture perceives it.

- Physical demonstrations of love vary between cultures which may influence how we perceive their success in relationships and how they rank as potential mates.

- In some cultures where sexual segregation is a common social practise, a gesture like hand-holding is not reserved for lovers but may be a sign of affection between close friends.

- One group member commented that love might be a source of bigotry because bonding with people similar to us excludes “strangers”.

- Altruism may be a cultural phenomenon because different cultures may rank help towards family and strangers differently.

- Arguably altruism is an evolutionary phenomenon because it allows us to reproduce and survive successfully.

- Falling in love, staying in love and loving another person (like offspring) were seen as different states by the group. Being in these states can change you (emotional growth) and your brain (neuroplacticity).

- Some members of the group have observed that being in a relationship is a skill that needs to be learned and practiced to ensure your success. The skills need to stay in love are different from the ones you us to fall in love.

- Mythological love (love for the divine or the paragon) may adversely affect people’s perceptions of potential and current lovers. Some people may say that having a mythological love and love literature is a way of easing the pain of reality.

- The concept of unconditional love may be an example of putting someone or something on a pedestal.

- Some have argued that all our relationships may be conditional because we expect some reward or expect people to fulfil expectations.

- For some, compassion (caring for another) is more important than love (caring for yourself). You will need to learn to adapt to changing conditions and priorities between you and your loved ones.

- Modern dating may involve people actively seeking love and expecting to find it. This may be problematic as one has to accept that they will be evaluated while evaluating others. Some of us may opt out of this cultural system.

- Not being in love or lacking this experience doesn’t deprive you of the full human experience (whatever that may be).

Interesting questions posed by the group:

Do humans have control over their instincts?

Do we have the final say in what we choose do?

Do cultural elements override our “natural” mechanics?

Is love a responsibility?

Is the most important thing in a relationship, the (mental) growth of the others involved?

1. “Is love an evolutionary instinct … etc” . Well, if you want it to be. If you are talking about some concoction of evolutionary instincts and decide to call that particular brew “love”, well there is no argument about it. It is then a contextual definition, not a discussion topic.

2. If a discussion is wanted, then it might come in several forms:

a) Supposing that we have some competent knowledge about instincts etc, then we might want to decide which mixture of neuro chemicals and physiological responses it might be useful to call “love”, or whether some other descriptive label was useful for this context (for example, “limerence” – see the Wikipedia entry on this).

b) Following a) we might then go on to hypothesize what kinds of environmental influences, such as nurture, reshaped the primal “love” concoction, to what extent, and in what manner, and for whom (male, female, adult, infant etc).

c) We might in fact decide to reserve the word “love” for wider and more vague cultural contexts. These could indeed include elements of a) and b), but would also take account of general usage of the word in daily life. As a linguist I would have to say that the “love” token is one of the most used and abused terms in most human languages. This in itself is culturally and psychologically interesting. That is, it is worth exploring. In English you can love your wife / husband / boyfriend / girlfriend / child / dog … or even a brand of toothpaste. You can love getting drunk on Saturday night, or you can love a movie you have just seen. Your interlocutor might respond with some exasperation that these are different and unrelated meanings of “love”, not what he wanted to talk about. In that case, you have to ask, very very precisely what he wants to talk about.

3. Since language is my trade, the chimerical meanings of “love” are not uninteresting. This is because the human brain both thinks and produces natural language by processes of analogy. Analogy, examined closely, is a fascinating phenomenon; ( in fact, I think it is a bridge between what are commonly called “mind” and “matter”, but that is too complex to go into here). The salient aspect of analogy for our purposes is that it connects apparently unrelated events, perceptions, or symbols by extracting or asserting shared features, and thus builds a network of cognitive relationships (language and/or other cognition). Thus for all the myriad uses of “love” we can find trails of connections which at some nodes coalesce densely enough for people to put them into a bucket labeled with the word token “love”. Once that happens the poets and spruikers and street kids take over. “Love” hits the billboards, the TV sets and infects the speeches of politicians. If you happen to have the hobby of tracking word meanings, you can then watch “love” spread like an ink stain through the culture.

4. OK, if you ask me, Thor May, what I know about “love” in some everyday, fuzzy context of gender relationships, I would have to say that you have come to the wrong guy. On the existing evidence from an otherwise interesting life, I have few dizzy secrets to recall from the reputed “being in love” mystery which saturates music, literature and film. But probably that is not what this meetup discussion was meant to be about anyway (??).

Wikipedia (2013) “Eros” [Romantic love… (Ancient Greek: ἔρωςérōs) is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can
be rendered into English as “love”… In the classical world, erotic love
was generally referred to as a kind of madness or theia mania ("madness from the gods")… Eros has
been recoded in a variety of ways across cultures and eras]. online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eros_%28concept%29

Wikipedia
(2013) “Storge love”. [(Ancient Greek στοργή,
storgē)
Storge or affection is a wide-ranging force which
can apply between family members, friends, pets and owners, companions or
colleagues; it can also blend with and help underpin other types of tie such
as passionate love or friendship. Thus storge may
be used as a general term to describe the love between exceptional friends,
and the desire for them to care compassionately for one another]. online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storge

Wikipedia
(2013) “Phylia”. [(Ancient Greek: φιλία,
philia ) in Aristotle's Nicomachean
Ethics φιλία is usually translated as affectionate
regard or "friendship" … Aristotle divides friendships into three
types, based on the motive for forming them: friendships of utility,
friendships of pleasure and friendships of the good… friendships of pleasure
are based on pure delight in the company of other people. People who drink
together or share a hobby may have such friendships… Friendships of the good
are ones where both friends enjoy each other's characters…the central idea of
φιλíα is that of doing well by someone for his own
sake, out of concern for him
(and not, or not merely, out of concern for oneself..]. online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philia

Wikipedia
(2013) “Agape”. [(Classical Greek: ἀγάπη, agápē) ... appropriated in Christian theology as the love
of God or Christ for humankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the
covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for
God; the term necessarily extends to the love of one’s fellow man...].
online @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape

EXTRAORDINARY

The
room is an ordinary room,

You are
gone,

The day
is an ordinary day,

Friend's
smiles are just ordinary smiles,

My care
is an ordinary care;

The air
still smoulders.

You
came, some nowhere time

Were
here, a rag doll,

Bedraggled
we thought,

Pale as
a cave-born moth, astounded by light

Urgent
in living, you came

How
brightly you burnt.

Burnt
me woman, warmed the air

Lit the
day, rushed blood to my lips

Made
smiles come out of hiding,

Scorched
the old paper words

That
rustle on our tongues, and dying

Left me
an ordinary man.

Thor, 1995

Today has lasted for 4 billion and 2
years, 6 hours, 12 minutes and 13.5 seconds

Live fast they said, go wild,

It flies, it doesn't last.

Go chase your moment

Run you mile, strut your hour

Build your pile, and don't come home

Don't come home, don't come home

And this is the way the world

Of the world, world, world, world
stopped.

Susan smiled and waved from the
footpath.

She was walking and smiling;

I was driving and smiling.

We went, went each way

And all day we were smiling

About driving and walking.

Thor, 1973

This poem was also
published (much to my surprise!) as part of an article in The
Hindu, a major national Indian newspaper, on February 1st, 2006.